


Hands That Help The Music Grow

by My_Dog_Is_Small_Baby



Series: Instruments of Hope [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: And Now I'm Running With It, I Planned This Instead of Sleeping, Instrument Maker Link, Music, My First Work in This Fandom, Please judge me, Random Snippets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25217158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Dog_Is_Small_Baby/pseuds/My_Dog_Is_Small_Baby
Summary: Despite Link somehow knowing how to make all these instruments and knowing the concept on how to play them, they don’t feel quite right to him. It's like he knows that these instruments he makes weren’t for him in the first place. He wonders what his past self did for a living.Snippets of different parts of Link's journey through Hyrule. Instrument Maker Link AU
Series: Instruments of Hope [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1826986
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	Hands That Help The Music Grow

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic so apologies in advance. I need criticism please. Of course I don't own the Legend of Zelda franchise. That is owned by Nintendo. It is mandatory for me to write that right? I am going to assume that it is because I am a newbie. I will go now.
> 
> 12/23/20: I edited out to make it a bit easier to read. Will try to update soon. Life has been very busy.

The grass beneath Link’s feet felt soft as he sat under the rock overhang. The fire next to him supplies him with a gentle warmth as he waits out the thunderstorm.

Quietly, he carves a wooden flute out of a river cane he found a couple days prior. His hands working away at the material as if it remembers what he cannot.

This happens a lot sometimes, his body knowing things he doesn’t recall ever doing before he woke up.

The way he knows around a cooking pot. The speed he moves in tandem with weapons as if it were an extension of himself. The memories he tries to recall on nights he can’t sleep eating away at him.

Link looks at the holes he made in the cane before grabbing a hand sized rock and a smaller reed. He methodically hammers the parts of the cane that weren’t already hollowed.

He found the river cane as he was trudging though some wetlands, leaving Zora's Domain. He already walked up and cut some of the reeds before his mind caught up. Link stared at the reeds for what to him felt like a minute, but was likely more than several.

All that he could recall of that moment was a girl’s laugh he didn’t recognize. The laugh was more of a giggle, but he could tell that sound was from someone kind.

Shaking his thoughts away from that, and inspects his work.

This is the fifth attempt at making a flute these past couple days, and he is finally certain that he successfully made a flute.

Despite going through familiar motions, he kept breaking his previous attempts. He broke the first two by pressing too hard when drilling the holes with a knife.

The third cracked in half when he was hollowing it out, and the fourth’s two back holes splintered. He cried a little (a lot) when this fifth one came out fine.

He tested the flute, tuning as he went until he was satisfied. The flute looked off however, but Link couldn’t see why. Eh, he’ll figure it out later. He only wanted to carve the thing.

He’ll figure out how to finish properly when he has the right stuff to do so.

With a quick scan of the sky clearing up to a light drizzle, Link packs up his things and puts his boots back on. He stamps out the fire before heading out on his way.

He randomly plays some notes as he walks, forming them into a resemblance of a tune. Weirdly enough, it reminds him of a sunny day.

-^-^-

Link much later gives this flute to a child in one of the stables he infrequently stops by. In hindsight it's anticlimactic that it was the one near the Wetlands. The small kid there was so defeated that

Link was determined to give him an outlet to do something fun. Goddess, he was younger than…

He is still young. His procrastinating brothers don’t help him at all with one goofing off and the other thinking a torch that can be broken in eight swings and is dedicated to practicing with it from dawn ‘till dusk. Link decides to at least help this kid which he learns is named Ami from the stable owner, Lawdon, and starts making notes.

Ami was surprised that the quiet guy caught him staring at the instrument. He looked so busy looking at the flute to notice Ami staring at it too, or so he thought.

The flute was stained a warm brown two thirds of the way with the rest stained yellow. A blue leather cord wrapped at the top with a loop that looked like it could be hooked on a belt.

It looks nice, and Ami begins to wonder when the music is starting.

Suddenly the guy looks right at him, his face unreadable, and presents the flute to him. He smiles completely as Ami slowly takes it.

The older boy listens as the kid fumbles through the notes and simple songs he remembered, made with pictures for each note of the tune.

Ami works through them passionately, but heeds his reminder of it being okay to practice at a slower pace. They continue practicing together during Ami’s breaks and when not Link would help with cooking and handling the horses so Ami can ask questions.

Link would urge the slacking brother to help a bit by carrying a log worth of firewood back to the stable and quirking a brow.

"Master Torch" Boy now had a secondary weapon and the “Hylian Pot Lid”. Link doesn’t know how that convinced him in the first place.

A week later, he departs on his horse this time to partially dissuade any more inking of him having Sheikah technology, but more for people to see him go. Ami watches him leave, while holding the flute and the notes in his hands, until he no longer sees Link in the horizon.

Ami tries to practice when he can in between working and pestering his brothers with Lawson to get them to do some work.

He thinks he sees Link sometimes as months since that week went by, but it is when he is busy with work.

Every time he tries to check, he finds fresh baked goods in weird places. He learns more songs and gets applause from travelers who heard him play during stable meal times. Sometimes when that Rito bard stops by, he teaches him more complicated melodies.

Ami thinks his life is less of a joke now.

One day when the skies suddenly turned dark with a thunderous storm, a bright golden light washed through Hyrule. The looming horror of a ruined castle becomes melancholic as the malevolent mist surrounding it dissipates.

The sun shone like a victory won afterwards, and Ami can’t help be reminded of the first song he learned. A song reminding him of the sun, a sun like this day.

**Author's Note:**

> When they all see that giant demon boar thing in the middle of Hyrule Field, Yolero drops his torch and pot lid starting to shake. Ami just pats his leg and hopes he didn't pee himself.


End file.
